Not Immortals
by broomclosetkink
Summary: For amie689. There was peace in knowing whose hands he would die at, and Hiko looked forward to seeing the end result of his work.


**A/N: Ages ago, amie689 asked me to do a re-imagining of her wonderful fic Not Immortals. A completely absurd amount of time later, I've edited it enough that I'm willing to share with the public. Save yourself the trauma and go read amie's amazingness, and then get sucked into her DeviantArt account. It's amazing!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.  
**

The girl is crying again. She does not weep loudly, with the gnashing of teeth and wailing of a woman who thinks she will soon be, for all intents and purposes, a widow of this most secret and unknown of wars. She simply cries in soft gasps, tears streaming down her face. Her hand trembles so violently that the lantern she holds shakes, casting monstrous, awkward shadows along the walls and floors.

Hiko Sejiuro XIII does not know how to comfort this woman. Words are almost entirely useless in this situation, so Hiko does all that he knows to do, and it is this: he leaves his shadows and comes close to the futon that is already deeply, irrevocably stained with the lifeblood of his stupid apprentice, and kneels down beside the girl. She looks to him, vivid blue eyes awash in tears and fear, her sharp chin trembling violently.

Her fingers are cold when they press against Hiko's own. He takes the lantern from her, and her hand drops as though it has weights tied to each finger.

"You should rest." His words may imply a suggestion but his tone does not. He refuses to tell her to stop crying - what good would that do? He is a great, mighty man...but even he cannot control the breaking of a woman's heart. "Kenshin would not want you to see this."

Across the futon, the woman doctor (Megumi, isn't it? Hiko has not had to trouble himself with names in so long that it bothers him to be forced to now) looks up. Blood drips from her fingers, splatters wetly across the white skin of her cheek.

"Go on, Kaoru," Megumi orders gently. "Please. Hiko-san is right, this is not a sight Kenshin would want you to see."

"I can't leave him." Terror and stubbornness alike cling to her words. "He wouldn't leave me."

"Idiot," Hiko snorts. "He would never allow you to be in this condition in the first place. Go on, girl. What if he opens his eyes and the first thing he see is your tears? He would never forgive himself; my idiot apprentice seems to believe that all tears are burdens his must carry like wounds on his soul."

"I -" A sob catches in her throat. Hiko's chest constricts painfully when she bows low, one hand bracing herself on the tatami as the other catches the limp, unresponsive hand of the man who has saved Japan once again. Her hair slips, like a bundle of silk cords, over her shoulder, and brushes his neck and face. Her lips press against his cheek, her tears carving tracks in the died blood on his skin.

"Kenshin," she breathes, "I will be back. Please...stay strong...for me."

Is it Hiko's imagination, or does the hand she holds flex? Does strong, stubborn fingers curl, and then cling? Does the long, ginger lashes of his eyes flicker, and can it possibly be that his lips curl, maybe it it is to form something quite like _Kaoru_.

The girl flees so quickly one would think her kimono had caught fire. The desperation she leaves in her wake stinks as badly as the sweat and blood.

"This will be gruesome," says Megumi quietly. "The doctors here in Kyoto have not done their job well. I fear Ken-san may..." she does not seem to be able to finish, but her gaze does not waver from Hiko's face. He nods, silently holding the lantern out a bit further.

"Does this help?" he inquires quietly, and his answer is a sharp nod.

She bends low, peels the bandages from a wound at Kenshin's shoulder; the stink of infection is sharp, bitter, and painful.

"A bite wound?" The doctor asks, and maybe her confusion is self-induced. Maybe she does not _want_ to know.

"The men who witnessed it say that Shishio Makoto ate Kenshin's flesh." Hiko offers this fact coldly. To do otherwise would stir up a rage so violent that he thinks the bowels of hell would split open simply to allow him to extract his revenge on the monster.

Megumi...chokes. Nods. Brings out a small knife, opens the edges that have tried to heal, and begins to milk the infection from the flesh.

Hiko watches.

He never thought it would come to this.

On the day that he found the small, flame haired child surrounded by crooked crosses to mark the slavers and bandits that deserved no mercy from the boy, Hiko had known. That child would become a man, a man of strength and wisdom and reason; he would honorably carry the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu into the future. And it would be to that man, that honorable successor, that Hiko would gladly loose his life to.

There was peace in knowing whose hands he would die at, and Hiko looked forward to seeing the end result of his work. He would die easily, with the same gratified smile that his own master had worn so many long years before.

Hiko thought, in the first few years after his stupid apprentice had run away to join the war ("There is pain and suffering right before my eyes - I cannot sit back and do nothing!"), that he would die simply from sheer rage. How could that little idiot leave his tutelage? Did he not realize how _special_ he was, how blessed and honored to be chosen to carry the Hiten Mitsurugi onwards?

Time soothes tempers, and brings wisdom. Hiko realizes now it was not simply anger that fueled his mounting resentment, it was hurt. As a lonely swordsman unbound by politics or honor to any but his own school of kenjutsu, Hiko had never thought to have - and never wanted - a family. He has always known that he is not the sort of man to share a fire or a home, a futon or long touches.

Hiko certainly never wanted children.

But Kenshin...

He gave Kenshin a _name_, a purpose, a reason for living. He molded him, shaped him, and while there may be imperfections in the surface of his student...there is also so much _good_. Stupidity and ignorance, yes, Hiko cannot ignore these things -

But has there ever been a man with a kinder heart?

Hiko believes that it is Kenshin that brought light back into his world. What better days were there than when Kenshin was allowed freedom from studies, warm afternoons to strip and jump into the river, swimming like a pale little fish? Or that face he made when he was learning to write; it frustrated him endlessly that his brush strokes were never as smooth and beautiful as Hiko's own.

And the pride - gods, the pride that came when he mastered, piece by piece, the disciplines of Hiten Mitsurugi...

In the end, though fifteen years past due, Kenshin did return. Begging him to teach him the final secrets of their school!

And Hiko thought, _ah, finally, the peace and satisfaction I deserve after these long years he has worried me..._

Yet it was only another disappointment. So stubborn, his idiot apprentice - had Kenshin allowed Hiko the death he had so rightly earned after so many long years of work? _No_. He denied Hiko the glorious, honorable death that was all he had strove for after taking Kenshin on his student...and so what is left? Growing _old _and feeble. Watching more wars come and go, more lives that he cannot save...

And perhaps Kenshin's is one of them.

Anger of such magnitude that Hiko can barely stomach it washes over him, makes his fingers and toes burn, his palms itch for the hilt of his sword; _how_ is he supposed to watch this? He should have been grieved for, not the one preparing to grieve his apprentice. He looked forward to death, but he never wanted to bury Kenshin.

What good is Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu when it cannot save the life this impossible, stubborn, brilliant, loyal man? This man who has carved out bits of his soul for years, trying to right the wrongs that few others are willing to correct? Was all Hiko's teachings for _nothing_?

"No," he breathes softly, so quietly that it does not disturb Megumi, who is restitching a wound, to intent on her work to notice anything else around her. The truth hits Hiko like the fastest, sharpest of blades, and now it is _his_ hand the causes the lantern to shiver. Only a brief motion, not even lasting long enough to disturb the doctor, but it is is enough for Hiko to understand.

"I should have told you," he speaks in that same, near soundless voice. "We are not immortals, Kenshin. Why did you never learn this from me...?"

"He did learn that lesson." Megumi speaks so suddenly that it makes Hiko jolt; the lantern jumps, and so do the shadows. She never looks up. Her needle is methodical, her stitches delicate and yet somehow sturdy. "Ken-san has always seemed to know that with every battle he takes on, he may die. He lives each day as a man who realizes it may be his last, and he holds no bitterness towards that fact.

"Ken-san does not fear death." Megumi knots the thread, cuts it off. She begins to clean the needle; it is slick with blood. "He believes he has committed the worst of sins, taking countless lives. This is his way of redeeming his soul, by taking on the burden of humanities sins. He will not kill, and yet he will not stop fighting. I am lucky enough know Ken-san, and count him among my closest friends, and while he has never told me this, I believe he wants to save at least as many lives as he took in the days of the Bakumatsu."

She begins to clean another wound, muttering angrily under her breath about incompetent doctors and her stubborn patient.

Hiko's jaw is so tight it hurts.

His hand shivers as it reaches out, resting against the top of Kenshin's head. His bright hair is dirty. Hiko should bathe him as best he can, when this is over.

"Idiot," he grumbles like thunder, and he thinks he can hear his own heart breaking. "I couldn't change you at all, could I?"

It is what he does not say that is spoken loudest throughout this sick room -

_If only it was me who was lying here..._


End file.
